Where Myths Lead to Murder

by Philip Agee July 1978

This essay was prefaced with the following statement: "This article is a slightly modified version of the introduction to the book Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe, by Philip Agee and Louis Wolf, just published. It expresses much of the philosophy of the CovertAction Information Bulletin."
Philip Agee, 1935 - 2008, worked as a case officer for the United States Central Intelligence Agency from 1957 to 1968 before having a crisis of conscience and dedicating the rest of his life to exposing the crimes of "the company," something he was hounded endlessly for by the US government and its lackeys.
In 1975 he published a book about covert operations in Latin America entitled Inside the Company: CIA Diary in order to inform the public about what the U.S. government was secretly doing on behalf of the American people. He founded and edited the amazing CovertAction Quarterly which had a regular "Naming Names" column, outing CIA agents. The column ended in 1982 with the passage of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which made the practice of revealing the name of an undercover officer illegal under U.S. law. It might be smart to re-read that last sentence after you finish reading this essay.

Today the whole world knows, as never before, how the U.S. government and
U.S. corporations have been secretly intervening in country after country
to corrupt politicians and to promote political repression. The avalanche
of revelations in the mid-1970s, especially those concerning the CIA, shows
a policy of secret intervention that is highly refined and consistently applied.

Former President Ford and leading government spokesmen countered by stressing
constantly the need for the CIA to retain, and to use when necessary, the
capability for executing the kinds of operations that brought to power the
military regime in Chile. Ford even said in public that he believed events
in Chile had been "in the best interests of the Chilean people."
1And even with President Carter's human rights campaign there
has been no indication that the CIA has reduced or stopped its support of
repressive dictatorships in Iran, Indonesia, South Korea, Brazil, and other
bastions of "the free world."

The revelations, though, have not only exposed the operations of the CIA,
but also the individual identities—the names, addresses, and secret histories
—of many of the people who actually do the CIA's work.
Yet, with all the newly available information, many people still seem to
believe the myths used to justify this secret political police force. Some
of the myths are, of course, actively spread by my former CIA colleagues;
others come from their liberal critics. But whatever the source, until we
lay the myths to rest, they will continue to confuse people and permit the
CIA—literally—to get away with murder.

Myth Number One: The CIA is primarily engaged in gathering intelligence
information against the Soviet Union.

This is perhaps the CIA's longest-playing myth, going back to the creation
of the Agency in 1947 and the choice of the name "Central Intelligence
Agency." As the Agency's backers explained the idea to the American Congress,
afraid even in those early days of getting dragged into unwanted foreign
adventures, the CIA was needed to find out what a possible enemy was planning
in order to protect the United States from a surprise attack. Americans at
the time still shared a vivid memory of the unexpected Japanese attack at
Pearl Harbor, and with the likelihood that the new enemy—the Soviet Union
—would soon have atomic bombs, no one could really doubt the need to know
if and when an attack might come.

The real success in watching the Soviets, however, came from technological
breakthroughs like the U-2 spy plane and spy-in-the-sky satellites, and the
job of strategic intelligence fell increasingly to the technically sophisticated
U.S. National Security Agency. The CIA played a part, of course, and it also
provided centralized processing of information and data storage. But in its
operations the CIA tended to put its emphasis on covert action—financing
friendly politicians, murdering suspected foes, and staging coups
d'etat.

This deeply involved the Agency in the internal politics of countries throughout
Western Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, as well
as in the Soviet bloc. And even where CIA officers and agents did act as
spies, gathering intelligence information, they consistently used that
information to further their programs of action.

The CIA's operatives will argue that the ultimate goal of discovering Soviet
and other governments' intentions requires live spies at work in places like
the Kremlin—that the Agency exists to recruit these spies and to keep them
alive and working. A Penkovsky or two should be on the payroll at all times
to keep America safe from Russian adventures. This argument may influence
some people, because theoretically, spy satellites and other forms of monitoring
only give a few minutes' warning, whereas a person in the right place can
report on decisions as soon as they are made, giving perhaps days or weeks
of warning. Such a spy might also be of great value for the normal conduct
of relations—whether in negotiations, cooperation, or confrontation.

Nevertheless, the vast CIA effort to recruit officials of importance in the
Soviet Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry, KGB, and GRU has never had significant
success. There have indeed been defections, but these, I was told in the
CIA, had nothing to do with the elaborate traps and snares laid out by the
CIA around the world. They resulted from varying motivations and psychological
pressures operating on the official who defected. In this respect, the CIA's
strengthening of repressive foreign security services, necessary for laying
out the snares (telephone tapping, travel control, observation posts,
surveillance teams, etc.). can scarcely be justified by the nil recruitment
record.

Today, notwithstanding recent "reforms", the CIA remains primarily an action
agency—doing and not just snooping. Theirs is the grey area of interventionist
action between striped-pants diplomacy and invasion by the Marines, and their
targets in most countries remain largely the same: governments, political
parties, the military, police, secret services, trade unions, youth and student
organizations, cultural and professional societies, and the public information
media. In each of these, the CIA continues to prop up its friends and beat
down its enemies, while its goal remains the furthering of U.S. hegemony
so that American multinational companies can intensify their exploitation
of the natural resources and labor of foreign lands.

Of course this has little to do with strategic intelligence or preventing
another Pearl Harbor, while it has a lot to do with the power of certain
privileged groups within the United States and their friends abroad. The
CIA spreads the myth of "intelligence gathering" in order to obscure the
meaning of what the Agency is really doing.

Myth Number Two: The major problem is lack of control; that is, the CIA
is a "rogue elephant."

This myth comes not from the CIA, but from its liberal critics, many of whom
seem to believe that all would be well if only Congress or the President
would exercise tighter control. Yet, for all the recent horror stories, one
finds little evidence that a majority in Congress want the responsibility
for control, while the executive branch continues to insist—rightly—that
the Agency's Covert action operations have, with very few exceptions, followed
the orders of successive presidents and their National Security Councils.
As former Secretary of State Kissinger told Representative Otis Pike's
Intelligence Investigating Committee, "Every operation is personally approved
by the President."2

For its part the Pike committee concluded in its official report, first published
in "leaked" form by the Village Voice, that "all evidence in hand
suggests that the CIA, far from being out of control has been utterly responsive
to the instructions of the President and the Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs."3

So the problem is said to be with the presidents—Democratic and Republican
—who, over the past 30 years, have given the green light to so many covert
operations. But why were the operations necessary? And why secret? The operations
had to be secret, whether they involved political bribes, funding of
anticommunist journals, or fielding of small armies, because in every case
they implied either government control of supposedly non-governmental
institutions or violation of treaties and other agreements. In other words,
hypocrisy and corruption. If the government was going to subvert free,
democratic, and liberal institutions, it would have to do so secretly.

There is, however, a more basic reason for the secrecy—and for the CIA.
Successive administrations—together with American-based multinational
corporations—have continually demanded the freest possible access to foreign
markets, labor, agricultural products, and raw materials. To give muscle
to this demand for the "open door", recent presidents have taken increasingly
to using the CIA to strengthen those foreign groups who cooperate—and to
destroy those who do not. This has been especially clear in countries such
as Chile under Allende, or Iran 20 years earlier under Mossadegh, where strong
nationalist movements insisted on some form of socialism to ensure national
control of economic resources.

The CIA's covert action operations abroad are not sui generis. They
happen because they respond to internal U.S. requirements. We cannot wish
them away through fantasies of some enlightened President or Congress who
would end American subversion of foreign peoples and institutions by the
wave of a wand. Not surprisingly, the U.S. Senate rejected by a very wide
margin a legislative initiative that would have prohibited covert action
programs by the CIA.

Only prior radical change within the U.S., change that will eliminate the
process of accumulating the value of foreign labor and resources, will finally
allow an end to secret intervention abroad. Until then, we should expect
more intervention by the CIA and multinational corporations—not less.
Increasingly important will be the repressive capabilities of the Agency's
"sister" services abroad.

Myth Number Three: Weakening the CIA opens wider the door for Soviet expansion
and eventual world domination.

This myth is peddled especially hard at times when liberation movements make
serious gains. Former President Ford and Dr. Kissinger used it frequently
during the CIA's ill-fated intervention in Angola, and we continue to hear
it again as liberation movements seek Soviet and Cuban help in their struggles
against the apartheid policies of the white Rhodesians and South Africans.

The problem for America, however, is not "Soviet expansionism," despite all
the anticommunism with which we are indoctrinated practically from the cradle.
The problem, rather, is that the American government, preeminently the CIA,
continues to intervene on the side of "friends" whose property and privilege
rest on the remnants of archaic social systems long since discredited. The
political repression required to preserve the old order depends on American
and other Western support which quite naturally is turning more and more
people against the United States—more effectively, for sure, than anything
the KGB could ever concoct.

As Senator Frank Church explained in an interview on British television,
"I'm apt to think that the Russians are going to choose [sides] better than
we will choose nine times out of ten. After all we're two hundred years away
from our revolution; we're a very conservative country."4

Myth Number Four: Those who attack the CIA, especially those who have
worked in the intelligence community, are traitors, turncoats, or agents
of the KGB.

This has been the Agency's chief attack on me personally, and I'm certain
that the fear of being tarred with the same brush is keeping many CIA veterans
from voicing their own opposition. But as with earlier efforts to find the
"foreign hand" in the American antiwar movement, the CIA has failed to produce
a shred of evidence that any of its major American (or European) critics
are in the service of any foreign power. The reader will also see that the
articles and authors appearing in this book are far too diverse adn spontaneous
to have been "orchestrated," either by the KGB or by some other person or
institution. The KGB no doubt appreciates the Agency's indirect compliments,
but revulsion alone toward what the CIA is and does has been a quite sufficient
stimulus.

Would-be "reformers" of the CIA have also discovered how the Agency reacts
to criticism. According to Representative Pike, the CIA's Special Counsel
threatened to destroy Pike's political career. In a conversation with Pike's
chief investigative staff person, the Special Counsel was quoted thus: "Pike
will pay for this [directing the vote to approve the committee report on
the CIA]—you wait and see. I'm serious. There will be political retaliation.
Any political ambitions in New York that Pike had are through. We will destroy
him for this."5

CIA veterans must not be intimidated by the Agency's false and unattributed
slander. We have a special responsibility for weakening this organization.
If put at the service of those we once oppressed, our knowledge of how the
CIA really works could keep the CIA from ever really working again. And though
the CIA will brand us as "traitors," people all over the world, including
the United States, will respond, as they have already, with enthusiastic
and effective support.

Myth Number Five: Naming individual CIA officers does little to change
the Agency, and is done only to expose innocent individuals to the threat
of assassination.

Nothing in the anti-CIA effort has stirred up more anger than the publishing
of the names and addresses of CIA officials in foreign countries, especially
since the killing of the CIA Station Chief in Athens, Richard Welch. CIA
spokesmen—and journals such as the Washington Post - were quick
to accuse me and CounterSpy magazine of having "fingered" Welch for
the "hit," charging that in publishing his name, we were issuing "an open
invitation to kill him."6 The Agency also managed to exploit Welch's
death to discredit and weaken those liberals in Congress who wanted only
to curtail some of the Agency's more obvious abuses. The second edition of
this book makes abundantly clear that CounterSpy had nothing to do
with the Welch killing.

The result of the Agency's manipulations isn't hard to predict. The CIA,
for all it's sins, came out of the recent investigations strengthened by
the Ford "reforms," while the Congress may attempt to pass an official secrets
act that will attempt to make it a crime for any present or former government
official ever again to blow the whistle by making public classified information.
No more Pentagon Papers. No more Watergate revelations. No more CIA
Diaries.

Nonetheless, the naming goes on. More and more CIA people can now be held
personally accountable for what they and the Agency as an institution do
—for the real harm they cause to real people. Their military coups, torture
chambers, and terrorism cause untold pain, and their backing of multinational
corporations and local elites helps push millions to the edge of starvation,
and often beyond. They are the Gestapo and SS of our time, and as in the
Nuremberg Trials and the war in Vietnam, they cannot shed their individual
responsibility simply because they were following a superior's orders.

But apart from the question of personal responsibility, the CIA remains a
secret political police, and the exposure of its secret operations—and
secret operatives—remains the most effective way to reduce the suffering
they cause. Already a handful of journalists and former intelligence officers
have managed to reveal the names and addresses of hundreds of CIA people,
and even the Washington Post—which condemns us for doing it—has
admitted that our efforts added greatly to the CIA's growing demoralization.
We also noticed from our own investigations that the Agency was forced to
step up its security precautions and to transfer many of those named to other
posts. All of this disrupts and destabilizes the CIA, and makes it harder
for them to inflict harm on others.

Of course, some people will always raise the cry that we are "trying to get
someone killed." But, as it happens, violence is not really needed. By removing
the mask of anonymity from CIA officers, we make it difficult for them to
remain at overseas posts. We hope that the CIA will have the good sense to
shift these people to the increasingly smaller number of safe posts, preferably
to a desk inside the CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia. In this way the
CIA will protect the operatives named—and also the lives of their potential
victims.

From the old song and dance of the "intelligence gathering" to the claim
that "those who expose are the murderers," these five myths won't simply
vanish. The CIA—and its allies—will continue to propagate them, and the
CIA's critics will have to respond. We must increasingly expose these myths
and the crimes they cover up.

But besides debating, there is much more that we can do—especially in
furthering the exposure of the Agency and its secret operatives. The CIA
probably has no more than 5,000 officers experienced in running clandestine
operations and it should be possible to identify almost all of those who
have worked under diplomatic cover at any time in their careers. Dirty Work
lists mainly those named as CIA operatives in Europe; we hope additional
volumes can be published on the CIA's people in other areas. All that is
required is a continuing effort—and a novel form of international cooperation.
Here's how:

1. In each country a team of interested people, including journalists, should
obtain a list of all the Americans working in the official U.S. Mission:
the Embassy, consulates, AID offices, and other U.S. installations. This
list can be acquired through a friend in the host Foreign Ministry, in the
American Embassy—or by other means.

2. The team should then get past editions of necessary public documents -
U.S. Foreign Service Lists and Biographic Registers (both published
by the Department of State) from a local library, and the Diplomatic
List and Consular List published regularly by every Foreign Ministry.
The Diplomatic and Consular Lists will contain the names and addresses
of the higher ranking members of the official mission, including some of
the CIA people.

3. Check the names as suggested in the various articles in Dirty Work, especially
John Marks' "How to Spot a Spook." Watch carefully for persons carried on
the Foreign Ministry's Diplomatic and Consular Lists, but who are
missing from the recent Biographic Registers and Foreign Service
Lists. Most of these will be CIA people purposely left off the State Department
lists.

4. After narrowing down the list of likely suspects, check them with us and with other Similarly oriented groups. CovertAction Information will follow up on all leads, and publish all the information it can confirm.

5. Once the list is fully checked, publish it. Then organize public
demonstrations against those named—both at the American Embassy and at
their homes—and, where possible, bring pressure on the government to throw
them out. Peaceful protest will do the job. And when it doesn't, those whom
the CIA has most oppressed will find other ways of fighting back.

Naturally, as new CIA people replace the old, it will be necessary to repeat
the process, perhaps every few months. And as the campaign spreads, and the
CIA learns to correct the earlier and more obvious flaws in its use of State
Department cover, we will have to develop new ways to spot them. Already
the Agency has gotten the State Department to restrict circulation of the
all-important Biographic Register, and it is likely that the
Administration will in future place more of its people under cover of the
Department of Defense (for example, in military bases, and in Military Assistance
Groups), the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the multinational corporations.

In rare cases, the CIA may even attempt changing the identities of certain
operatives. Nonetheless, the CIA will always need a secure base in embassies
and consulates to keep its files and communications facilities, and there
are many ways to identify the CIA people in these missions without relying
on public documents.

Within the United States, people can help this campaign by supporting the
groups struggling to stop covert intervention abroad. There is also the need
for continuing research into current CIA operations, and new programs to
identify and keep track of all the FBI special agents and informers, military
intelligence personnel, and the Red Squads and SWAT groups of local and state
police departments.

Together, people of many nationalities and varying political beliefs can
cooperate to weaken the CIA and its surrogate intelligence services, striking
a blow at political repression and economic injustice. The CIA can be defeated.
The proof can be seen from Vietnam to Angola, and in all the other countries
where liberation movements are rapidly gaining strength.

We can all aid this struggle, together with the struggle for socialism in
the United States itself.

Notes

1. News conference, September 16, 1974, reported in the International
Herald Tribune, September 18, 1974.

2. Testimony by Kissinger to House Select Committee on Intelligence, October
17, 1975, as reported in the International Herald Tribune, November
1-2, 1975.

3. Report of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, as reported in the
Village Voice, February 16, 1978, p. 84.

4. "Newsday," BBC-2 television, February 18, 1975.

5. Hon. Otis Pike, speech on the floor of U.S. House of Representatives on
March 9, 1976, as reported in the International Herald Tribune, March
11, 1976.

6. Editorial, Washington Post, as published in the International
Herald Tribune, December 30, 1975.